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“Doctor Who” – Watch Jodie Whittaker as the First Female Doctor in the New Season 11 Trailer

Doctor Who Returns October 7 to BBC America

Sep 20, 2018By Christopher Roberts

A new trailer for season 11 of Doctor Who has been shared. It follows a brief teaser trailer that was shared in July and fuller trailer from Comic-Con (also in July). This is the first season where British actress Jodie Whittaker takes over as the first ever female Doctor and the show returns to BBC America on Sunday, October 7. Watch it below.

Back in July 2017 the BBC announced British actress Whittaker would be taking over the iconic role of The Doctor on Doctor Who. Season 11 will also feature The Doctor's new companions: Tosin Cole as Ryan, Mandip Gill as Yasmin, and Bradley Walsh as Graham, who are all in the trailer.

Whittaker is best known for playing Beth Latimer for three seasons on Broadchurch. Other notable credits include "The Entire History of You" episode of Black Mirror and the film Attack the Block, among others.

Doctor Who first aired in 1963. The writers worked out a clever way to keep going when its original lead actor, William Hartnell, needed to leave the show in 1966: as The Doctor is an alien, instead of dying, when he or she is mortally wounded he/she "regenerates" into a new body and personality, allowing them to cast a new actor every few years while retaining the same continuity. Whittaker is the thirteenth actor to play the role (if you don't count John Hurt's the War Doctor and the fact that the First Doctor has been played by two other actors since Hartnell's death) and the fifth one since the show came back in 2005 (which was 19 years after the last regular season of the classic series).

Peter Capaldi took over as time- and space-traveling alien The Doctor in 2013, but he regenerated into Whittaker during last year's Christmas special, which saw him team up with the very first Doctor, who was played this time by David Bradley (Harry Potter, The Strain).

Last season was also Steven Moffat's final season as the showrunner and head writer on Doctor Who, last year's Christmas special was his final episode as showrunner. His replacement is Chris Chibnall, who has already written several episodes of Doctor Who and its spinoff series Torchwood and is also known for creating and writing the acclaimed British detective drama Broadchurch (which starred David Tennant, who used to star as the Tenth Doctor in Doctor Who). Chibnall obviously was instrumental in bringing Broadchurch's Whittaker on board.

Whittaker had this to say in a previous press release when she was announced: "I'm beyond excited to begin this epic journey - with Chris and with every Whovian on this planet. It's more than an honor to play the Doctor. It means remembering everyone I used to be, while stepping forward to embrace everything the Doctor stands for: hope. I can't wait."